


rush in (not wash away)

by MissCoppelia



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fear of Drowning, Healing, Kissing, Post-Canon Fix-It, Redeemed Ben Solo, The Force Ships It, Water, spiritual cleansing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26670889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia
Summary: Ben and Rey return to the Resistance after the Battle of Exegol, hoping to find a home there, but her friends are not as eager to welcome the former Supreme Leader as Rey is.Her frustration lingers, as does his longing.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 31
Kudos: 87
Collections: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	rush in (not wash away)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [radioactivesaltghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactivesaltghoul/pseuds/radioactivesaltghoul) and the RFFA mods for help with beta-reading this fic.

“Let’s stop here.”

The river looked inviting, and Ben’s black clothing was damp with sweat. 

Besides, it wasn’t as though they were going anywhere in particular.

* * *

It hadn’t gone as she hoped when they got back from Exegol. 

Yes, they celebrated with the rest of the Resistance, but once everyone sobered up and noticed the tall, dark newcomer at the base on Ajan Kloss, things soured—especially with Finn and Poe.

Ben expected it. The two newly-minted generals were right to be suspicious of him, and had no reason to trust him yet. Rey thought otherwise. Her word should have been good enough for her friends. Instead, the three fought about it constantly while the rest of the base stared and muttered behind his back.

For all his reassurances, whispered into her ear when she’d stormed off to the little cave where they slept, Rey remained furious. 

* * *

Ben slipped off his jacket and shirt before working off his boots. It felt nice to free himself from the sweaty fabric. Rey stood there, her eyes unfocused as he shimmied his pants off. 

That stung a little. The way she’d reacted to his bare chest that one time had sent his pride soaring to heights it’d never seen before. He’d hoped, especially after the way she kissed him on Exegol, that things would progress eventually, but he’d done no more than hold her since then.

 _Stop thinking with your dick, Solo,_ he chided himself. But it was more than that. As joyous as victory was, that didn’t mean everything was right just yet. Rey thought she had won, only to find herself still unsettled inside. Her sorrows radiated through their bond like ripples on the surface of the water, and it weighed heavily on his mind. He wanted more than anything to bring her some lasting comfort.

* * *

The weeks kept passing and still Ben was a matter of deep contention. Lando, Maz, and Chewie were the only ones happy to keep Ben company, or include him in whatever they were doing. Ben was grateful for it, even if most of it was just busy work or regaling him with stories he’d never heard before. They all needed to mourn - not just his mother, but Luke and Han as well.

He thought about Leia often. Particularly when he was laying in bed, waiting for someone to retrieve him from boredom. (He would train, but it was safer to just wait until Rey wanted to train with him, in case someone mistook practicing his lightsaber forms for actual violence.)

His mother would have seen the problem and said something that would both reassure and quell any dissension. If only Ben had inherited her sharp tongue.

* * *

At first he left Rey to sit on the banks while he waded into the current and dipped his head under the cool water. She made no move to join him, and the last thing he wanted to do was force her when it was clear her mind was far away.

He swam to the other bank, then back again, then up the river some, then back to where Rey sat lost in thought.

She hadn’t moved an inch. 

* * *

He tried to stop the fight. Ben could tell it was ripping her heart open to choose between him and her friends.

“Rey, please stop this,” he said trying to sound urgent, but not threatening. Stars only knew what would happen if Poe and Finn thought he was threatening Rey. “Your friends just want—”

“How would you know what we want?” Finn snapped. “Stay out of it!”

Rey’s face twisted then, her eyes prickling with tears Ben knew she wouldn’t let fall. 

“I’m doing this for you, for us,” she growled. “You’re _not_ helping.”

Ben’s lips parted, but no words were there. He ran a hand through his hair and did his best to hide in the corner of the tent—no small feat when he was the tallest in the room whenever Chewbacca wasn’t around. 

A glance outside told him the entire base was listening. Not that it was hard. No one was keeping quiet. 

“You accepted a First Order General as a spy, but you can’t accept the former Supreme Leader when he turns to the light,” Rey said, seething. “Ben helped me defeat Palpatine. We would have lost without him!”

Poe’s fist came down hard on the holotable. “That was wartime, Rey! We couldn’t turn that intel down!”

“But you can’t find it in your hearts to believe that Ben has changed?”

“The man is a war criminal!” Finn interjected. “He’s responsible for the death of millions!”

Rey whirled back around to face Finn. “Ben? Or Snoke? Because Snoke was the one to order that they fire on the Hosnian System, not Ben.” 

Ben sighed as they continued. Rey was right. He hadn’t issued the order, but his hands were still dripping with the blood of innocent lives. Lives he hadn’t really meant to take, but he’d been so angry, so numb...

* * *

“Rey,” he said softly. 

Her eyes flickered toward where he stood, just below her feet where the river carved away rock for thousands of years. In this season the water was lower, creating a little cliff between them.

His wet fingers poked at her boot. “Join me. The water feels good.”

“I can’t swim,” she said bitterly. “I don’t know how.”

Ben pulled himself up the ledge and crawled to sit beside her. “I can teach you.”

She huffed out a laugh, but went quiet when Ben’s hand slipped into hers. When they touched, they felt still and focused. The world wasn’t just one person anymore, but they were there as one. It was his one respite from all the changes in his life.

His eyes lifted towards Rey, pleading silently for her to join him in the water, but her gaze shied away.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Ben couldn’t help the little grin that crossed his face. He leaned closer, inches from her skin. He wanted to kiss it, to breathe in its scent, to taste her finally. “Like what?”

“Like— like you’re disappointed in me.”

The weakness in her voice pulled at his heart. Rey was always so strong and sure of herself whenever she spoke. Something was happening inside her that shook the walls of strength built up over years of adversity. To see them begin to crumble made him want to scramble to shore them up again.

Pulling her into his lap was an awkward affair. Her elbows thudded against barely healed wounds as she moved to balance herself. When finally Ben had her entire body close to his, he squeezed tightly as if Rey would run away. 

“I’m not disappointed,” he whispered, far too aware of how close his lips were to her ear. “I’m worried for you.”

* * *

Rey stuffed what few things she owned into a pack. It took Ben even less time to grab his own things—the lightsaber, a few shirts that someone scrounged up for him, a journal that Maz found somewhere. 

He followed her wordlessly to the Falcon and demanded that Chewie take her off planet. Finn and Poe could only watch in desperate horror as she left without any goodbyes.

The first few weeks as they hopped from place to place and did odd jobs, she pored over the Jedi texts or tinkered endlessly with the ship during their downtime in hyperspace. Chewie and Ben spent most of it playing Dejarik or talking in quiet tones. Chewie had seen her dejected before in that year before Exegol, but at least then Rey had poured herself into training under Leia. There had been purpose in training, no matter how frustrated she was. The Resistance needed her then. Now, she seemed to have nothing at all. 

Ben hoped that feeling had changed when she decided to stay on a verdant planet after they delivered several cases of meiloorun fruit to a small town. But as he held her in his arms on the riverbank, he knew she was just as lost as before. 

“I’m fine,” Rey said, relaxing into his arms just slightly.

“You’re not,” Ben insisted. “You haven’t been fine since Exegol.”

She sighed and tried to push away, but Ben held onto her tighter. 

“Let go _,_ you’re all wet,” she demanded. 

He felt childish, but his arms didn’t budge. “No.”

Rey struggled and growled as he kept her there. He knew it was a matter of time before she grew so frustrated that she’d use the Force to escape, before she finally had enough.

“The water will feel good,” Ben told her calmly as he rocked over onto his knees and stood, still holding onto her.

She tried to break free as he righted himself. “Kriff! Just let me go already!”

“I won’t let you drown.”

Rey stilled at that, her eyes finally returning to his and wide as saucers -scared and glimmering. 

“I won’t,” he repeated, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I promise.”

He shifted, lifting her up slightly so that he could wrap her legs around his hips before stepping down to the bank of the river.

“Wait! Wait!” Rey yelped, her nails starting to dig into his bare skin. “The water!”

“What about it?” Ben said, trying to hold back a chuckle. 

“It’ll be freezing!” 

He almost let the laughter break out, but Rey’s nose pressed harder into his collarbone and he realized she was trembling. 

“It’s not freezing cold, I promise,” Ben said softly. If he could run a hand down her back to ease her tension, he would, but his hands were too full of her weight.

“It’s not?”

She believed him, she knew it was true because the bond told her so. Something more compelled her to ask anyway. He wished he could wipe whatever it was away.

“It’s cold, but it feels refreshing. Like a shower.”

Her tiny little “oh” was so small, he wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t also felt it against his skin. Ben buried his nose in her hair, smelling the sweat and the dirt that clung to her. It was always there, part of her scent, but he ached for more.

With a sigh, he lowered her down and she automatically dropped her feet to stand on the rocky shore. Rey gripped his forearms, a look of worry on her face.

“I want to teach you how to swim.” That was a lie. Or perhaps not a lie, but not the real truth. What he really wanted was to help her overcome whatever it was that was holding her back from being happy. So he could be happy. So they could be happy together.

“Okay,” she murmured, her eyes down.

Her cheeks flushed as he began to undress her. First her boots, then the bindings around her arms. The belts, the sash she always wore, all of it would catch on the current and drag her down, and Ben didn’t want that for her. Rey should feel free in the water.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be easier this way,” he told her when she gasped as he pulled her top off. “That’s why I got undressed.”  
  
She gave a half-hearted laugh at that. “I thought it was because you didn’t want to get your clothes wet.”

That made him smile. “That too.” 

One of her buns came loose when he’d undressed her, so he tugged it free and ran his fingers through the fine strands. Rey didn’t say anything, but he noticed a little shiver as he became entranced by the way her hair dusted her shoulders. Emboldened, Ben took out the rest. He began to massage her scalp and untangle any knots that had made their way into her hair.

Rey leaned into his arms, eyes closed. In truth, he had only seen her hair fully down when it was wet, just before she brushed it back into the buns. She slept with them in, curled up on her side with a weapon close at hand. He hadn’t thought it was odd because he slept the same way.

“Ben...” She sighed his name. She had never sighed his name before, so he didn’t know if it meant he was doing things right or wrong.

“What is it?” he murmured.  
  
With another sigh, she leaned further into his chest. “Nothing...Is this part of it too?”

“No,” he said as his stomach fluttered with nervousness. “It’s just to help you relax.”

Rey hummed softly and he felt her fingers tickle across his chest. Without a word, he stepped back and took her hand, leading her to stand in the very shallows where the water could lap at her feet.

His focus was at their feet—making sure she didn’t slip and fall on the rocks—when he felt a pull in the Force. A gasp came from overhead and Ben looked up. Rey’s eyes were wide with uncertainty and she searched Ben’s face for reassurance, even though he had little to give.

He gulped and squeezed her hand. “I think,” he paused, “I think the Force wants you to come into the water.”  
  
She was trembling where she stood, unable to move. “I don’t know why I’m so scared. The water here isn’t as cold or as scary as on Ahch-To.”

His thumb swirled across her fingers, remembering how shaken she had been when the Bond had opened up. “What happened that night? You never told me.” 

Rey swallowed hard before she could speak. “I fell. Or maybe the Force pulled me in, I’m not sure. Something was calling me to the cave, but when the water hit me, I had never been so terrified. I thought I was going to die like that. I couldn’t tell what was happening or which way was up. I had no control. I couldn’t get the water out of my lungs...”

What he had to do became clear then. Ben wrapped his arms around Rey’s waist and brought her close.  
  
“This won’t be like that cave because I’m here with you,” he whispered into her ear as he pulled her upwards. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Rey clung to him like a child, but the water around them seemed to delight at their presence, swirling around Ben’s ankles as if to say _I’ve been waiting for you._ It seemed to glimmer, not in the harsh way that sunlight usually glinted off the water, but from inside its depths. Ben gulped as he went deeper, but the currents seemed to slow around them.

In his arms, Rey twitched as the waters reached her legs and Ben gave her a reassuring squeeze to help calm her.  
  
“You’re doing so well,” he whispered. 

She turned her head from his collarbone to peek at the water below. It glowed brighter as she did and Ben heard the quiet inhale that told him she was awestruck.  
  
“This isn’t normal,” Rey breathed, shivering slightly as the water hit her spine.  
  
“No,” he told her, trying to sound calm even though his heart was pounding too. “But the Force wants you here. It must be trying to tell us something.”

A few more steps brought the water up to their chests, Rey gulped hard so Ben stopped.  
  
“We don’t have to go any further. Not until you feel comfortable.”

Rey nodded. She was already hanging back slightly, feeling the weightlessness of being in the water. Ben smiled as she looked around at the water around them, still swirling with the energy that bound them together and made them who they were.

“What do you think it’s trying to tell us?”  
  
Ben hummed. “I’m not sure. My uncle would have known.”

Rey laughed at that. “Luke wasn’t very good at teaching. Too cryptic.”

He frowned, thinking back on his lessons with his uncle, even now tainted by the discord that grew between them. Rey chattered on, still giggling.  
  
“The first thing he told me was to ‘reach out’ and then he smacked my hand when I actually reached out,” she said, reaching out like she must have done during that particular lesson and bringing Ben back to the present. “Apparently I was supposed to ‘reach out with my feelings’ instead.”  
  
“He must have done that to me a million times,” Ben said, a smile beginning to appear despite the painful memories. “He’d always tell me that my mind wasn’t clear enough, but he never told me how to clear my mind.” 

“I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but he really was a terrible teacher!” Rey laughed again, and Ben found himself chuckling too.

Rey stopped with a sigh and gazed into his eyes, one of her hands coming to stroke at his cheek.  
  
“What is it?” he asked, all the air in his throat suddenly dropping to his stomach at her touch. It felt so good like that, so right, but he didn’t want to dare get his hopes up.

But Rey pressed her lips to his just like she had on Exegol. She was sweeter and less demanding this time, and he tried his best not to lose himself entirely. 

“It’s so good to see you smile,” she whispered, pulling back slightly.  
  
“Rey,” he groaned, already feeling desperate for more. He pressed his forehead against hers to stop himself from pressing onwards, though his hands held her closer under the water. “I’ve missed your smile too. You’ve been so unhappy.”  
  
The water lapped at their bodies, filling the silence growing between them. Ben hadn’t meant to make things awkward, but there was no avoiding this conversation or the pain that came with it. His heart began to pound as he searched for something more to say. Rey beat him to it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking just slightly. “I haven’t—”

“No, no, Rey,” he interjected. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I’ve failed you. I don’t know why you’d want to stay with me and the Resistance. They hate you, even though I’ve tried everything—”

He sighed slightly, running a hand up and down her side to reassure her. “I stay because I don’t ever want to be separated from you again. I don’t care if they hate me as long as you’re there.”

“I don’t want them to hate you,” Rey managed to eek out before the tears began to fall down her face. “There isn’t any reason to hate you anymore.”

Ben stared down at the opposite half of his soul, so tired and frustrated by the world that it was beginning to break her down. He didn’t know the right words to say. He never did, but the water around them glowed encouragingly, so he said the first thing he could think of. “It’ll take time. It took time for us.”

It was quiet for a moment, aside from the way her breath caught on her tears, and Ben couldn’t help but wonder if he’d said the wrong thing. Without the full use of his hands, he did his best to kiss the tears from her cheeks until they slowed. 

“I just wanted somewhere to feel like home,” Rey finally told him as she wiped the last of her tears away with the palm of her hand. “I thought that my home— _our home_ _—_ would be with the Resistance.”

“I know,” he responded, already afraid of his next thought. “But I’m not sure it will ever be home for me.”

Rey nodded in agreement, though the sadness was clear in her eyes. Ben hated that he was the source of it.

Squeezing her a little closer, he pressed their foreheads together again and closed his eyes. “Before I would have just destroyed something and left, but now—I just want to be wherever you are.”

With a heavy sigh, Rey buried herself into the crook of his neck as the water lapped around them. “So what do we do now?”

Ben hummed. “I think, for now, you should learn how to connect with the Force this way, in the water. Then we can figure out the rest.”

Carefully, he let her legs drop from his hips, allowing her to stand on the rock below. When Rey felt comfortable enough just standing in the current, Ben had her close her eyes and lay her hands on the top of the water’s surface.

“The water is just the same as any other part of the Force,” he told her. “Reach out and feel how far it flows.” 

Within a moment, her Force Signature unfurled around him, reaching eagerly into everything it could touch, desperate to learn. There was something so pure and wonderful about this part of her, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He had been too battered and cynical to enjoy much of anything.

“There’s a mountain. It’s so far away from here,” she said suddenly. “The water comes from all the way up there, the ice. It’s amazing, Ben. There’s so much ice.”

He closed his eyes then and sent tendrils of the Force out to the source of the water. He came upon a beautiful glacier, glowing blue and grey in the deep valleys where the sun had melted it, and pure white at its peaks. 

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“The water is so pure,” Rey continued. “You can see straight to the bottom. I can see the fish in here.” 

Ben opened his eyes and found her looking at the water below them with wonder in her eyes. It was true, it was some of the clearest water he’d ever seen, but he’d forgotten to notice until now.

“You’re amazing,” he found himself saying.

Rey looked up and laughed. “What?” 

Ben just smiled. “It’s nothing. I just wish I could see the galaxy like you do. With so much wonder.”

She squeezed his hand then, her cheeks flushed. Ben squeezed back.  
  
“Can I teach you how to swim?”

* * *

They started simply. He lifted her up and showed her how to float on the water’s surface, their hands and arms entwined so she didn’t float away.  
  
She quickly learned how to paddle her legs to keep herself afloat without touching the bottom, but when Ben suggested she dip her head underwater, Rey tensed up.

“I’m going to drown,” she gulped, squeezing his hands in a death grip so tight that it would surely break his fingers if she kept at it.

“The Force is here protecting you. I’m here protecting you. You can feel the water now. You won’t drown,” Ben responded, twisting his fingers in hers so that they didn’t totally lose circulation. 

The waters around them shimmered in agreement and Rey inhaled sharply before her grip on his hands loosened.  
  
“All you have to do is take a deep breath and put your head under the water for a few seconds. Just count to five or ten. And you can hold onto me as much as you’d like and your feet can be touching the bottom.”

Rey nodded, but still looked apprehensive. Ben waited, if only because he didn’t want to force the issue if she wasn’t ready, but suddenly she took a big, gulping breath and pushed herself below the surface of the water.

Instinctively, Ben tightened his grip on her hands and held his breath, watching the top of her head just below the surface for any signs of trouble. She emerged a few seconds later with a hurried gasp.

“I did it,” she breathed, her eyes shining and a smile growing on her face. “I really did it. It wasn’t that scary.”

Ben laughed as a swell of pride and love bloomed in his chest at the sight of drops of water trickling down her head, making her eyelashes clump together. “You did. I knew you could.”

“Can I do it again?”

Ben nodded. “I can go underwater too, if you want.”  
  
The smile she gave him then was of pure, childlike delight and Ben’s heart flipped. He pulled her in for a quick kiss, a bit too hard for its innocent nature, but he couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful and bright and filling, and now that he knew that she wanted to kiss him too, there was nothing holding him back. Ben wanted to kiss her every moment he could. He wanted to bring her every bit of joy he could, and now he would.

“Let’s do it,” he said as he pulled back.

Counting down from three reminded him of his mother and father, the things they’d taught him to do, how he’d be shy and scared too. But soon the water rushed in around him and he had to peak open his eyes to see Rey in the water, her eyes still squeezed shut.  
  
When they came up for air, he kissed her again, tasting the water on her lips as she laughed at his eagerness. All of it made him feel like a kid again, nothing but the joy of the moment on his mind, rippling through their Bond.

They played in the water like that for a few more hours as Rey grew more daring with her new-found ability to swim. By the time they crawled up to the shore, she’d swum across the river on her own and with the current a few times, squealing with excitement at how it propelled her forward. 

They flopped onto the ground, tired and wet, curling up against each other just because they were happy and they could. Rey wriggled closer, wrapping an arm around Ben before she settled her head against his chest. Ben’s hands found their way into her hair and he gently stroked his fingers through, carefully undoing any knots he found along the way.

At first, Rey was quiet, her eyes closed. Eventually she wriggled back to look him in the eyes, her expression serious. 

“Ben, what do you want to do now that the war is over?”

His eyebrows flew up at the question and guilt crept into his stomach. In truth, he’d been scared to think past each day, too worried that whatever lay ahead would lead to more mistakes, more suffering wrought by his hands. 

Rey ran a hand up his arm and squeezed it reassuringly, making Ben realize he had sent all that through the bond.

“I’m not sure,” he said quickly. “I haven’t—I’ve been...afraid to think about it.” 

Rey gave him a smile of understanding. “That’s okay. Everything changed for you.” 

With a heavy sigh, Ben nodded and Rey continued as she ran her hand up and down his arm. “Maybe we could think about what we want to do together?” 

That stopped him in his tracks for a moment. He’d been so focused on Rey, but just being with her, not doing things as one. But the thought of it filled him with new hope. He buried his nose into her hair and drew their bodies together tighter as the bond began to sing.

“Yes,” he said urgently. “I want that. I want our future to be together.”

Rey laughed and lifted her head to kiss his jaw, just a tickle of her lips on the light stubble that was beginning to form there. “Let’s call Chewie to come get us. We can start thinking of ideas on the way back to Base.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I was very much inspired by the Jewish and Islamic traditions of spiritual cleansing through bathing/immersing yourself in water, and the way water can be a healing force (and also, a bit of a destructive one.) 
> 
> You can find me on twitter @MsCoppelia


End file.
